Polio victim, now 87, recounts the fear and pain when virus was rampant
WEST HAVERSTRAW — Few recall the fear polio spread whenever cases of the deadly virus were discovered, when children were often at the mercy of a disease that could strike their limbs, their breathing ability, their lives.
Elwood Ennis remembers. At 87, he continues to live with the fallout that polio brought to tens of thousands of children during each wave.
Ennis remembers his family's little house in Central Nyack. He was about to start kindergarten. He remembers playing in the sandbox. Then he remembers one day, telling his mom, "Mommy, my arm won't go."
The ambulance came. He was scared. He was taken to Bergen Pines, the polio isolation hospital. "The only memory I have is laying in bed, enclosed in a glass cubicle." He could see his parents, expressionless, standing behind the glass. He asked his parents to bring his favorite toys. They all had to be burned, his mother told him.
He has no idea how long he lay there, in Bergen Pines. Two days after Christmas 1941, he was at Helen Hayes, which was then called The New York State Reconstruction Home.
Now, Ennis reads about a new case of polio — the first case in a decade in the U.S., the first to be transmitted domestically since 1979.
This new case occurred in Rockland County and the young adult victim suffered paralysis. The person had never been vaccinated.
Paralytic polio usually occurs in one of every 200 cases, with most cases of the virus asymptomatic. Wastewater tests show presence of the virus since June, and again in July, in Rockland and Orange counties.
Infectious disease experts weigh in: What's the real risk from NY's polio outbreak?
Health officials warn that the virus is circulating here and that the one case could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Meanwhile, the polio vaccination rate among 2-year-oldsin Rockland County is 60.5%; the statewide average is 79.1% Shots are recommended at 2 months, 4 months, between 6 and 18 months, and then boosted around ages 4 and 6. In New York, polio vaccination is mandatory for school..
"They should get them vaccinated for sure," Ennis said of the parents who should be spared the terror his family and so many others faced before polio vaccinations became available in 1955.
Surgeries and searing pain
Ennis spent 1942 confined to a bed in what's now known as Helen Hayes Hospital.
He was carried by stretcher to physical therapy, to the movies, to church services in the hospital every Sunday. In May 1942, he underwent the first of several surgeries to help give him more mobility in his left hand and arm.
Because polio's impact doesn't just end with the initial viral attack, Ennis recalled new limitations he would face as he grew, and repeat stays for further treatment. He had more surgery there in 1943, in 1945, in 1950.
While Ennis fondly remembers the camaraderie of the children and the care of the staff, he also acknowledges the searing physical pain that often haunted him.
'Tip of the iceberg': How state health officials are setting off alarms over polio
The 'new normal'? New York COVID cases rise 11%, deaths also up
More bears here? Less space and scarce food make sightings more likely
Ennis' experience embodied the philosophy Helen Hayes Hospital brought to the field of rehabilitative treatment, said Lisa Fielack, public relations director at Helen Hayes.
"Before 1900," she said, "people didn't have hope that (polio victims) could become productive members of society."
Ennis,whose left arm and hand suffered the brunt of his polio battle, took auto repair courses in high school and even got a job at a gas station. "I could change a tire just as easy as anyone else could," the current Bardonia resident recalled. "I had to do it my way." He needed help when working on a vehicle when it was up on a lift.
Ennis had a long career as a printer, including for the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, and then as a sales rep for Agfa-Gevaert.
"I've had to be creative," he said of overcoming physical limitations that polio left him.
New kind of hospital, innovative treatments
Helen Hayes Hospital opened Dec. 5, 1900. Called the New York State Hospital for the Care of Indigent Crippled and Deformed Children, many of its young charges were suffering from "tuberculosis of the bone and joints." A handful were diagnosed with "infantile paralysis," now known as polio.
"We've been treating polio since the first day that we opened," said Fielack, unofficial guardian of the hospital's archives.Those records include minutes from the first meetings and operating room schedules, including patient outcomes. Marked in red pen are those whose conditions did not improve, and those who died.
During the 1916 polio outbreak, one of the worst in the U.S., the hospital served mostly indigent children who couldn't afford private care and those kids in "the country" who couldn't make it to New York City.
"After 1916, the hospital was really polio focused," said Dr. Glenn Seliger, director of traumatic brain injury rehabilitation at the hospital and assistant professor of clinical neurology at Columbia University.
By that time, the hospital occupied a hill above the Hudson in West Haverstraw, where it had relocated in 1905 after moving from its original location, a house in Tarrytown.
Hospital therapists employed cutting-edge techniques. "We had hydrotherapy back in the 1920s," Seliger said.
"Hot packs" were considered cutting-edge polio treatment in the 1940s. Ennis can recall them scorching his skin and then turning uncomfortably heavy as the woolen packs cooled and became clammy weights.
The large dorm-like rooms had giant widows, left open in all seasons, a philosophy known as the Pavilion System. "A major tenet of treatment," Seliger said, "they would get them to be in fresh air and living their lives."
A mother's loss
The facility underwent several name changes that reflected its growing role in rehabilitating polio patients. During the 1923 polio epidemic, it became The New York State Orthopedic Hospital for Children. In 1929 the name was changed to New York State Reconstruction Home. Then the New York State Rehabilitation Hospital in 1948 and the New York State Rehabilitation and Research Hospital in 1972.
In 1974, the state changed the name to Helen Hayes, to honor the First Lady of Theater and Nyack resident who had given so much time and helped raise resources for the facility.
Hayes' daughter, Mary MacArthur, a budding actress, had died of polio in 1949 at age 19.
Hayes worked with the March of Dimes to raise funds for vaccine research. She visited the children at the hospital who were undergoing intense therapies for polio. She championed state investment in the facility and served for decades on the hospital's board of visitors.
Helen Hayes' loss stood as a testament that anyone was vulnerable to polio, although it usually struck younger children.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt also suffered from polio at age 39, when he was well into his political career. It is believed he acquired the virus during a trip to a Boy Scout Jamboree at Bear Mountain in 1921.
Ennis said his mother swore to her dying day that he got sick after playing at a neighbor's brook. His four other siblings at the time — a baby sister arrived later — never fell ill.
A disease of the 20th century
Polio has been around for millennia — 15th Century B.C. Egyptian imagery show a likely case.
It was, though, a disease of the 20th century. Hygiene improvements during the Industrial Revolution eased the threat of diseases like typhoid and tuberculosis.
But better sanitation also meant that infants weren't being exposed to polio while they were still imbued with the benefit of their mothers' immune system.
The virus spreads most often through oral-fecal transmission, for example, when handwashing isn't thorough after using the bathroom or changing diapers. Young children, lacking that early immunity, were especially vulnerable.
There is no cure for polio - although experimental antiviral research continues. There are better treatments for the effects of polio, which include post-polio syndrome atrophy and weakness that can occur decades after the original illness. Technological advancements also improve quality-of-life, like light ergonomic braces rather than a cage of heavy metal and leather straps and supportive care using ventilators and tracheostomies instead of living in an iron lung.
With no cure, the condition remains one that can only be prevented through vaccine.
As of Aug. 8, Rockland County reported that 1,360 polio vaccines had been given as part of its effort to boost the vaccination rate after the polio case was reported here.
Seliger expressed confidence in public health officials in tracking and controlling any polio spread. Meanwhile, state health and federal health officials have sounded the alarm.
"Many Americans don’t remember the era of iron lungs and leg braces, and the devastation associated with this crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease," said Dr. José R. Romero, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "And that’s due to widespread vaccination."
Nancy Cutler writes about People & Policy. Click here for her latest stories. Follow her on Twitter at @nancyrockland.